A trip to Weekend Isle with Nature's Nurse

Published 1:31 am, Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Belly down, I awoke to distant bird songs, filtered sunlight and dream remnants of a lapping tropical sea. It felt like workweek waves had just tossed me onto the Saturday Morning Pillow Beach of Weekend Isle.

"Ummm," I sighed dreamily after noticing that I had slept a solid 10 hours, "I must have really needed that."

My mother used to call sleep "nature's nurse" telling me that I burned the candle at both ends. I still tend to do that because there simply aren't enough hours in the day.

A good night is when I get five or six hours of shut-eye. My granddaughter, Aquinnah, is a veritable sleeping pro. When asleep in her car seat, I can pick her up like a little ragdoll, carry her upstairs to her bed, and she doesn't miss a sleep-beat.

Sleep researchers studying brain waves have found that they change as we age.

When we're little, brain waves are slow with high peaks at the beginning of the night and these steep waves are what insulate us from environmental disturbances and make it the most restorative kind of sleep.

As the years pass, the peaks gradually diminish in size, our sleep becomes increasingly fragile and we tend to awaken easily.

"There are historical records of people sleeping in two bouts at night," Wehr said. "The first bout they called dead sleep and the second bout was called morning sleep. The wakeful period in between was referred to as watch or watching."

In a study simulating a long winter's night with 14 hours of darkness, subjects indeed found that they slept in two "bouts" with a wakeful period in between lasting two hours.

Researchers were surprised to learn that those in the study did not experience lying in the dark for hours as "torture" but rather agreed that it was more of a "quiescent, meditative state."

Dr. Tamara Sachs, who practices functional medicine in New Milford, noted that the average night's sleep in the industrialized world has decreased since the beginning of the last century, from nine hours to seven-and-a-half hours to make room for more work and leisure.

"Although sleeping may seem to be a monumental waste of time," she said, "an appropriate amount of sleep is just as important to your well being as proper nutrition and exercise.

And "you can live longer without food than you can without sleep."

Because the brain does not have to process all that it is bombarded with during waking hours, much healing and regeneration occurs while we sleep, such as, Sachs said, "recuperation from illness, repair of physical injuries as well as regular wear and tear to the body, detoxification and biotransformation, emotional and spiritual healing all take place primarily during sleep."

Specifically the liver, our major detoxification organ, does the bulk of its work while we sleep.

Because the biochemistry and physiology of the resting body at night differs from the active daytime body, many other critical nighttime functions will not occur at any other time, Sachs said.

"Melatonin, important in cancer prevention as well as sleep and cell function, is made from serotonin during the night and seems very dependent on darkness."

Though people who get less than adequate sleep may become accustomed to it and feel less fatigued over time, Sachs warned that the health risk costs are high.

She cited a study indicating there may be a strong link between sleep deprivation and diabetes. Just one week of deficit altered subjects' hormone levels enough to significantly impair their capacity to metabolize carbohydrates.

Some other costs of sleep debt, according to Sachs, are muscle and joint pain, general malaise and an exacerbation of chronic injuries or health conditions.

Suggested Sachs "if you wake up restless or anxious in the middle of the night you are probably experiencing low blood sugar and should try having a small, healthy snack before bed."

"We all experience occasional insomnia," concluded Sachs, "but chronic sleeplessness is a serious problem and needs to be addressed in order to stay healthy."

Linda Napier is a registered nurse, independent consultant and patient advocate living in Southbury who is author of the book "Tender Medicine." You can contact her via email at lindanapier@netzero.com.